Guilt Concealed By Fear

Guilt Concealed By Fear
Ravi Zacharias

What do we do when we have committed a wrong that we are ashamed of? What can we do with those wrongful deeds that we can’t seem to erase from our consciences?

One way that many people deal with guilt is to cover it up. This can seem almost instinctive at times, as if something inside us says, “Hide it. Forget about it. No one can know.” But this puts us in a very precarious position, for not only are we dealing with guilt, but now we are dealing with the fear of being “found out.” When we add fear to our feelings of guilt we are adding apprehension to the remorse we are struggling to conceal. Just as a blackmailer is never satisfied, so the one who lives in fear with guilt ends up blackmailing his or her own heart to pay the mind. But the heart is never consoled, for the mind is never sufficiently paid.

Guilt that is concealed seldom stops with the one who harbors that hurt. Sooner or later that pain of fear and guilt is spread to others, particularly to those closest to us. “Victimless” crimes are an illusion, for deceit is a monster that needs constant feeding. It would be foolish for us to think that we can deal with guilt by somehow covering it up. The moment that we cover our guilt we escalate the tension in our lives by adding the dimension of fear. We may then become people who seem okay on the outside, but inside we are struggling to maintain the facade.

Many used this same ploy with Jesus in his day. They would throw one question after another in order to hide the real struggle beneath them all. He says to those who have tried to cover over their guilt, “Woe to you...for you clean the outside of your cup, but inside the cup is full of turmoil...First clean the inside of the cup so that the outside may become clean as well.” Here Jesus refers to the heart as a cup. What you pour forth will show the condition of your heart, even if the “outside” looks clean.

Carried to a different level, this same tendency underlies all our national preoccupation with one social or economic crisis after another. No one seems willing to admit that at the heart of our malady is a mangled spirituality.

Let us go to God with our “cup full of turmoil,” so that we may not live in fear, but in hope.

© 2007 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. All Rights Reserved.

The Dying Art of Thinking

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries - Just Thinking

The Dying Art of Thinking
Ravi Zacharias
1992 - Spring/Summer

The 17th-century French philosopher Rene Descartes (pronounced Day-Kart) is best known for his dictum, "I think, therefore, I am." A cynic may well quip that Descartes actually put des cart before des horse, because all he could have legitimately deduced was, "I think, therefore, thinking exists." I do not intend to defend or counter Cartesian philosophy; I only wish to underscore that thinking has much to do with life and certainty.

One of the tragic casualties of our age has been that of the contemplative life—a life that thinks, thinks things through, and more particularly, thinks God's thoughts after Him.

A person sitting at his desk and staring out of the window would never be assumed to be working. No! Thinking is not equated with work. Yet, had Newton under his tree, or Archimedes in his bathtub bought into that prejudice, some natural laws would still be up in the air, or buried under an immovable rock. Pascal's Pensees, a work that has inspired millions, would have never been penned.

The Bible places supreme value in the thought life. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," Solomon wrote. Jesus asserted that sin's gravity lay in the idea itself, not just the act. Paul admonished the church at Philippi to have the mind of Christ, and to the same people he wrote, "Whatever is true . . . pure . . . if there be any virtue . . . think on these things."

The follower of Christ must demonstrate to the world what it is not just to think, but to think justly. But how does one manage this in a culture where progress is determined by pace and defined by quantity?

What is even more destructive is that the greatest demand comes from neither speed nor quantity, but rather from the assumption that silence is inimical to life.

The radio in the car, Muzak in the elevator, and the symphony entertaining the "on hold" callers add up as impediments to personal reflection. In effect, the mind is denied the privilege of living with itself even briefly, and is crowded with outside impulses to cope with aloneness.

Aldous Huxley's indictment, "Most of one's life . . . is one prolonged effort to prevent thinking", seems frightfully true. The price paid for this scenario has been devastating. T. S. Eliot observed:

"Where is the life we have lost in the living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information ?

The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries

bring us farther from God and nearer to dust."

Is there a remedy? May I make some suggestions for personal and corporate benefit?

Study God's Word

Nothing ranks higher for mental discipline than a planned and systematic study of God's Word, from whence life's parameters and values are planted in the mind. Paul, who loved his books and parchments, affirmed the priority of Scripture: "Do not go beyond what is written." Psalm 119 promises that God's statutes keep us from being double-minded.

Read Great Books

The English-speaking world is endowed with a wealth of books. But much contemporary literature comes perilously close to a promiscuous religion with an appeal for the "feel better" syndrome, rather than the impetus to "go deeper."

Read authors who stretch you and introduce you to other writings as well. Great writers stimulate your capacity to think beyond their ideas, spawning fresh insights and extensions of your own. Good reading is indispensable to impartation of truth. An expenditure of words without the income of ideas leads to conceptual bankruptcy.

Challenge the Mind

The church as a whole, and thepulpit in particular, must challenge the mind of this generation, else we betray our trust. The average young person today actually surrenders the intellect to the world, presuming Christianity to be bereft of it. Many a pulpit has succumbed to the lie that anything intellectual cannot be spiritual or exciting.

Thankfully there are exceptions. When living in England, our family attended a church pastored by Roy Clements, one of the finest preachers in the western world. Every Sunday at two morning services he preached a one-hour sermon to a packed auditorium.

Cambridge, being rife with skepticism, demanded a meticulous defense of each sermon text from the assaults of liberalism. An introduction of a technical nature would take up to 15 minutes of his time before he entered into the heart of his message.

I mention this to say one thing. When we were leaving Cambridge, Nathan, who was nine years old, declared the preaching of Roy Clements to be one of his fondest memories. Even as a little boy he had learned that when the mind is rightly approached, it filters down to the heart. The matter I share here has far-reaching implications. We do a disservice to our youth by not crediting them with the capacity to think. We cannot leave this uncorrected.

This is our first issue of Just Thinking. It is our hope that this newsletter will challenge your mind and stir your heart. After all, it is not that I think, therefore, I am, but rather, the Great I Am has asked us to think, and therefore, we must. And we must serve Him with all our minds.

© 2007 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. All Rights Reserved.

Ethnic Envy and The NEP - a reply

cruzeiro wrote:

cucutokteja wrote:
Are they the Malays - no and if not the Malays who are suppossed to have most of the extras and yet they are not, who then are the owners of most of the houses, condos, apartments, shops in the super complexes etc?
=================

Dear friend,
I do not presume to have the statistics to prove my observation - but yours is definitely quite perverse.

Your observation is myopic at best.

Nobody said that the Malays own all the prime real estate - but they definitely could have, had the economy been better planned.

You seem to have asked the wrong question, my friend .... you should've asked why is your observation as such, when for almost 40yrs, the Malays have apparently been given the benefits with total disregard for merit!

What the NEP has produced and is still churning out, is nothing more than certified mediocrity and failures, with more excuses to perpetuate elitism under the guise of affirmative policy.
What NEP has produced is nothing more than a generation of "bumiputeras” who are paralysed in their will to live with freedom and independence.

They are so psychologically paralysed, that they depend on politicians (ie govt aid and civil service) for their rice bowl – and so have willingly given up their rights to the politicians.

As far as I know there has been no man that has become rich via "makan gaji", unless he is corrupt.

So, I now wish to ask you, cucutokteja -
Who are the real beneficiaries of NEP? I'll tell you - It is none other that the pirates of the constitution, who rob the million/ billion dollar enterprises by law.

The heartless exploitation of the people for political capital is evident from education, job and business opportunities which aren't based on merit, but color, creed and "affiliations/ influence". Aid isn't given to the deserving (unless for posterity), but to the influential.

What the man on the street has to face is "indirect taxes" via increased costs of production in all industries, as a result of these wasteful "affirmative action" policies that translates into higher production costs.

As a result of all these actions, what it produced is nothing more than envy among all - all feel "deprived" in one way or other.

But it doesn't seem to matter much to the Malays (in fact, many are foolishly happy, even when they too stand to lose indirectly), as long as it is the Chinese or Indian that gets screwed by a Malay – and it serves to inflate the “ketuanan Melayu” ego, nothing more (except it does create another rich and corrupt bureaucrat who'll own businesses via proxies).

Dear friend, have you heard of the predicament of businessmen in a certain industry who were given a deadline to "obtain" a "bumiputra" shareholder with 30% equity in the company?
This guy was lamenting his fate, while having a drink with me ...................

These are guys who built the businesses with their bare hands over 20 years, and are today forced to give away their holding at par value to a "big shot", or their licences may be "reconsidered"!

Now could you tell me, how in heaven's name, does the Malay/ bumiputra as a people, benefit from such an action?

Yes, they do own bungalows, and send their children overseas for education, and there is no way that you can stop the industrious from being successful in life. They who have the hunger to succeed, will do backbreaking labour if it has to be so, unlike the slothful who complain of the handicaps they have endeared themselves to.

If that is what you or other Malays envy, cucutokteja, what's stopping the Malays from working just as hard?

I know of quite a number who have made it on their own, and I for one, am happy for them. I wouldn't envy them - not for a minute, even though I'm not as fortunate - for envy is a sin from which many other evils are born.

By all means, support the deserving Malays to come up in life – I have no problems with that (In fact, I feel it is very much warranted). But do it right, by not encouraging mediocrity and corruption and don't deprive another of his bread and butter – that is the sentiment that you see expressed in the web, which you don't seem to appreciate.

Do it right – by preventing the abuse of funds via a life of luxury, until they have earned their keep. One could fill volumes with names of “businessmen” who live a life of luxury on loans/ contracts given in the name of NEP. I do know of such people personally – golf club memberships, jet-set lifestyles, mercedes/ bmw etc. - next thing you know, they are declared bankrupt, and are selling ayam panggang in the pasar malam!

These actions are wasteful and everybody pays a price for it, even if you don't realize it.

Arabic Day

Today I wish to indulge myself in all thing Arabic, so as not to seem biased against them - Hey Man - there cool things about arabs ....... Like, like, ....... like ......
Ah yes - crude oil, the desert sands, Islam, IEDs, suicide bombers, the veil, falafel, kebab, belly dancing, yeah man ..... and many more.
And today I'm enjoying Arab culture on YouTube - and I dont care if you think they are uncivilized scum of scum!
So here goes ......

Funny Arab Guy


Next, we have belly dancing (Rated PG18)
Arabic belly dance from Lebanon


Here's some very "touching" music, about the sad predicament of an arab
Hey There Khalilah


Let's move on to more pleasant stuff, huh?
A-R-A-B Rap


Now just to round it up, we got -
Some funny arab rap



That's all for today .... I'll write no .... publish what I wrote soon enuff!

Kau Ilhamku

The doctor and his patient

The STAR
Columnists > Brave New World

Thursday August 23, 2007

Brave New World
By AZMI SHAROM

And the scene opens:

The scene is an ordinary doctor’s office. Rather drab, with old yellowing posters.

The doctor is listening to his own heartbeat with his stethoscope while absentmindedly depressing his tongue with a tongue depressor. There is a knock on the door.

Doctor (surprised): Come in, come in.

A middle-aged man with a paunch and a very bad comb-over enters. There is a sickly pallor to his skin and his clothes have seen better days.

Doctor: Ah, Mr Essiah? Mr Malachi Essiah? Here for the test results, eh?

Malachi (coughs): Good morning, doctor. Yes I am, and please call me Mal.

Doctor: Yes, yes, jolly good, jolly good. Please sit down, Mal.

The Doctor shuffles some papers looking for Mal’s test reports. Eventually, he finds them.

Doctor: Righto, here we are.

Let’s see, let’s see. (He reads the report.) Hmmmmmm.

Malachi: Is something the matter, Doctor? Am I all right?

Doctor: Hmmmmm.

Time passes.

Malachi: Doctor, you are worrying me.

Doctor: Huh? What? Oh sorry, I was trying to decipher what’s written here. Bloody doctors can’t write.

Malachi: But you are a doctor.

Doctor: I am? Oh yes, I am. Of course, of course. Yes, I am. Well, Mal, it doesn’t look good, I must say. You’re 49 years old and ?

Malachi: 50 next week.

Doctor: Really? Well, then, an early “Happy birthday to you!”

As I was saying, you are going on 50 and you’ve made a right royal mess of things, haven’t you?

It says here that everything is out of whack. I take it you are a man of means.

Malachi (proudly): Oh yes. I have made much money in my time. My business has been growing and growing.

Doctor: So has your waistline, from the looks of things. And your cholesterol level. And your blood pressure.

Seems you’ve been putting money before everything else, eh? The only thing that hasn’t grown is your hair.

Mal glares at him.

Doctor: Sorry, it’s a little joke.

Mal keeps on glaring.

Doctor: Yes, well. Errr ... moving along. You have gout. That is a rich man’s disease, you know. Too much red meat. And your arteries are pretty clogged up. Also, it would appear ? hmmmm ... tell me, do you have trouble pooping?

Malachi: Pooping?

Doctor: Yes, you know, pooping. To poop. To pass poop.

Malachi: Oh. Yes, now that you mention it ... it can be a bit of a ... a bit of a ?

Doctor: Strain?

Malachi: Yes, yes ... strain.

Doctor: Not surprising, Mal, since you are all blocked up: constipated, as they say in medical journals.

You have crap in you that must date back years. You can’t go around carrying that kind of baggage with you, Mal.

You must let go. Wash it out. I hear a coffee enema might do the trick.

Malachi: A what?

Doctor: A coffee enema, you shove a tube up your whatsit, pump in the coffee and it all flows out.

You’ll be clean as a whistle and feel much better for it.

Malachi: That sounds uncomfortable.

Doctor: If you don’t cleanse your gut of poop, sir, I can guarantee that such discomforts will be the least of your worries.

Malachi looks at the floor. He is obviously upset.

Doctor: Look here, old fellow. There is still hope, you know. Don’t be so crestfallen.

Right now your main concern should be your heart.

You have been mistreating it and it shows.

Your heartbeat is irregular and your stress test shows you can’t walk up a flight of stairs without being out of breath.

Malachi: What should I do?

Doctor: This calls for a total change in lifestyle and attitude.

Change your diet to something healthier. Eat good things.

Purge your body of the corruption that years of high living without any consideration to yourself have brought.

Malachi: But, Doctor, I am not all bad, you know. I take good care of my liver. I drink a very expensive tonic that takes care of my liver.

Lots of money I have spent on it.

My cousin brother’s wife’s uncle’s second son direct sells it to me. It’s a very good company, Conway.

Doctor: Hmmm, well, I must admit your liver is not in any danger of collapsing but really it is still showing the same wear and tear of any 50-year-old liver. The tonic has done very little except keep your liver in the state it has always been.

Besides, you must take care of your entire body.

You can’t just say I’ll take care of one bit and leave the others.

If you do that, everything will shut down and even the parts you take care of will be dead.

Malachi is quiet. The Doctor gets up to stand next to him.

He puts his hand on Malachi’s shoulder, which is brushed off rudely.

Malachi: You know what, Doctor. I don’t believe you. I feel fine.

Doctor: Look, you are deluding yourself. You are not fine. You are on the verge of collapse.

Malachi: That’s what you say, but I am going to get a second opinion.

I think you are biased and you have a hidden agenda. Maybe you want me to buy your medicine, huh?

Doctor: I want no such thing. You are my patient; I am here only to care for you.

Malachi: Hah! That’s what you say only. Well, I think you are an alarmist fraud. I am going to go to my son-in-law’s doctor. He will tell me I am fine.

The Doctor sighs resignedly.

Doctor: Very well then. I can’t force you to listen to me. Whatever happens, I hope you will take care of yourself. I’ll be here if you need me.

Malachi gets up to leave. He adjusts his waistband and flattens his comb-over. As he leaves, the Doctor calls out.

Doctor: Mal. Would you like a vitamin C tablet? It’s sweet.

Malachi: I am not a child, doctor. I am going to be 50 years old.

Doctor: (To himself: You could have fooled me). (To Mal) Oh yes, of course you are. Happy Birthday, Mal.

Dr Azmi Sharom is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya.

What has come of “Us”?

What has come of “Us”? - This is a question that keeps on being asked of late.

To dissect and study, and then to answer, one has first got to be willing to accept the facts, even if it goes against what we were taught to believe.

No amount of discussion and dialectics would result in anything positive should we be so rooted in our conviction, that we are willing to look the other way in the face of truth.

First and foremost, what is this fear that we have, that we are willing to live in denial?

Dispossession.

Faced with the possibility of dispossession, one would do anything to protect what he/ she has – even if it means to lie, cheat, steal, betray or kill – in the name of God if necessary. It is in human nature to strive for survival, and all else takes a back seat when faced with this predicament.

As things are, it is the insecurity in a certain group of people that has led to the “Bogeyman Syndrome” that afflicts the nation that was once a melting pot of cultures.

The champions of "the” group never fails to remind the “underprivileged” of their apparently noble struggles to enrich them, via an agenda of unblushing, unapologetic greed and robbery.

It is a sentiment that is easily identifiable. It is a sentiment that never fails to win the sympathy of the unthinking masses. We are thus condemned to listen to shameless rhetoric that hides an agenda of greed ad infinitum, ad nauseaum. Any effort to correct the malady that afflicts the nation as a whole is shamelessly politicized and condemned as subversive and anti-establishment, so as to perpetuate the “siege mentality” that has served the nation so well for half a century.

It appears the those with “vested interest” in the apparent economic prosperity of the nation cannot do without holding on to the siege mentality, that should have been diluted over the years. Instead of reassuring the people of the prosperity, they have chosen to inflame the passions of the young ones, so as to spite his brother.

Economic benefits once considered a privilege, is today demanded as a "birthright” - a right to acquire by law, the wealth and riches, that was built on the human spirit of enterprise, excellence, progress and survival.

My fellow Malaysians, today, we live in a nation that has its socio-economic woes swept under the carpet "frivolousness", with the cloud of the infamous May 13, 1969 hanging over our head. All policies made today, goes back to that fateful day – it is a fact that unapologetic politicians take pains to remind us of.

We are a nation that lives on a notion that provides for a "siege mentality".

The saddest part of it all is, those who today work with the co-conspirators of the event, shamelessly applaud the results that it has achieved in terms of social integration – apparently a testament to the cooperation among various RACES.

Racial profiling of an individual has become something of a necessity, that empowers one while it emasculates the other politically- a house of cards without which, the regime would crumble.

However, the scenario quickly reverses itself when one looks at it from an economic standpoint. It has emasculated the political master and empowered economically, those apparently subservient politically. Those who have been repressed and disadvantaged as a result of corrupt policies, have triumphed over the political masters, in their effort to face the challenges on their own – whatever the methods may have been. This has resulted in further ethnic hegemony which is in turn, used to perpetuate the never ending cycle of conflict in our beautiful nation.

The national bogeyman who was once the Communists, has magically been transformed into the intellectual and economic predator. As if that wasn't enough, the propaganda machinery that's groping in the dark, seeks out for more bogeymen in every aspect of life – entertainment, leisure, sport, education, religion, politics etc.,etc., etc. - so as to intimidate the progressives. For every shortcoming, there is a perfect bogeyman.

Nothing is spared in the endeavour of the politicians, towards achieving their goal of segregation through ethnic profiling – not gender, not education, not religion, not social standing or contribution, nor even truth. Nothing is held sacred anymore in the eyes of the politicians – not knowledge, not marriage, not family and most pathetically, not even God.

There is no apology offered for this evil "branding” of humans, and no offense is to be taken. In fact, they who do this, brag about the successes that they "achieved” as a result of this system of selective deprivation, subjugation and mental slavery.

The apparent beneficiaries of this policy of "empowerment”, have unwittingly enslaved themselves as a result of debt and gratitude "owed" to the leaders – without whose ethnic hegemony, they are told, would be stripped of their political & economic might by the ever predatory bogeyman waiting around the corner. It is this blind dependence on the powers that be and the voluntary mental slavery in fear of dispossession, which breeds the evil that so permeates our society today – nothing more, nothing less.

So the question remains – in whose interest would it be to enact racial profiling, ethnic hegemony, religious supremacy, and the economical indebtedness and malaise that afflicts the nation?

It is none other than the political proponents of the “pride and joy” of all Malaysians - New Economic Policy. Yes – Malaysians are doomed to a future of economic and mental slavery under the thumbs of their “political masters”, so long as the NEP survives in any form or guise.

No nation that disregards the noble values that contribute to progress, has ever achieved successful nationhood. Malaysians appear to believe otherwise, and wish to prove history wrong. So be it.

For what it is worth – Happy Merdeka!